This is bad. Since the early/mid ’90s years Doug Henwood maintained a sane, constructive presence online — mailing lists, newsletters, websites, proto-podcasts — and on the radio. I’ve never seen him say or share anything that’d justify suspension or anything remotely like it. That record would be impressive for anyone, but given how much lunacy can permeate leftism (for example, at Pacifica radio stations like WBAI) Doug’s reserve is a towering achievement. So, as Jonathan notes, we’re left with one of those all-too-familiar dilemmas about Facebook’s decision to suspend him. Do we attribute it to malice or incompetence? Is it venal or stupid? Is this one of those “first they came for” stages or just an anomaly? We can’t know, which in a way is the general problem. The specific problem is that Facebook has shut down an absolutely, reliably, responsibly sane voice for no good reason and with no clear recourse. IN PARTICULAR, no bot-proof way for communities that know him to intervene to establish his bona fides. And, on some ur-level, wasn’t that model of ‘community’ — the one where people demonstrably know each other — supposed to be the whole f*cking point of Facebook?Updated May 24, 2020 12:39:15 pm
Jonathan Sterne
May 24, 2020
EDIT: Doug is back. I am pretty sure the campaign of writing about it did nothing. But now Doug Henwood can read nice things people wrote about him in his absence.
From time to time I share stuff here that I learned from Doug Henwood—a pillar of left journalism in the US and someone I’ve known since the 1990s. He is one of the smartest economic thinkers I know. He is also one of the many people who have recently had their accounts suspended recently for sharing mainstream news or something else innocuous (I know this also recently happened to Casey McCormick). Whether this is an example of sh*tty AI implementation or the result of harried decisions by underpaid, non-unionized, exploited click workers whom Facebook pays to moderate its “content” as a blistering pace, I don’t know. But it shows the degree to which social media need to be regulated like the public utilities that they are. Banning policies with no clear explanation and no appeal are just wrong if you’re as big as Facebook. Liza Featherstone said it may help to post about it, so if you know Doug, please do. Or share this post. I’ll make it public.